Free - The checklist

The seventeen things we check before we open Klaviyo.

Every one of them is visible from the outside of a shop.Nothing here needs an account, a login or a call.

When a store asks us for a teardown, this is the pass we make first. It is deliberately the outside of the shop: what a first-time visitor is asked for, what they are offered in exchange, what brings them back, and what the store is quietly teaching them about price.

We do it in that order because the inside of a Klaviyo account cannot be fixed past a certain point if the outside is not feeding it. A welcome flow is only worth what the capture in front of it collects.

Work through it on your own store. It takes about twenty minutes, most of which is the phone, and you will find at least three.

Where this came from

These are the exact checks our teardown engine scores. It reads the live storefront the way a first-time visitor sees it, and it has run on every store that has asked for a free teardown.

The seventeen

Open your own shop in a private window.

On a phone, because that is where the traffic is.

01 - Capture - 8 checks

Everything that happens before somebody is on the list. Eight checks, and this is where most stores lose the most.

  1. Open your own storefront in a private window on a phone. Count the ways a first-time visitor can hand over an email address without buying anything.

    What a miss costs
    With no signup offer, every first-time visitor who leaves is gone for good. The list is the only asset that survives a bad ad month.
    What good looks like
    One capture on the home page and one in the footer, both offering the same thing. Two places, one offer, one field.

  2. Time the popup. Note what you had a chance to read before it appeared.

    What a miss costs
    A popup that fires before the visitor knows what the shop sells gets dismissed on reflex, and a reflex dismissal is not a no. It is a question asked too early.
    What good looks like
    Trigger on intent rather than a stopwatch: a scroll depth, a second page, or exit. If it has to be a timer, make it long enough to read the hero.

  3. Count the fields in the signup form. All of them, including the ones marked optional.

    What a miss costs
    Every extra field costs completions, and the ones asking for a birthday or a phone number cost the most because they read as a store that wants something.
    What good looks like
    Email alone. Ask for the rest later in the welcome flow, once the subscriber has a reason to answer.

  4. Read the incentive out loud, then work out what it is actually worth against your median order value.

    What a miss costs
    An incentive sized by habit rather than by price is either ignored or too generous. A token 5% reads as nothing, and a standing 25% sets the price the customer waits for.
    What good looks like
    Percent-off suits an average order under about 100 dollars. Dollar-off suits above it. Whichever you pick, it should be the largest thing in the box.

  5. Cover the offer with your thumb and read what is left. Does it name what the reader gets, or does it sell the newsletter?

    What a miss costs
    Most popups sell the subscription instead of the reason to want it, and nobody has ever wanted a subscription.
    What good looks like
    One line naming the thing they get. Not 'join our community', not 'stay in the loop', not 'be the first to know'.

  6. Try to close the popup without submitting. On a phone, with one thumb.

    What a miss costs
    A corner x with no deliberate close below the submit button trains visitors to dodge the box, and on mobile it is how a popup becomes a bounce.
    What good looks like
    A plain, full-size decline under the submit button. Not a 9px x in a corner, and not a line that makes the reader feel stupid for declining.

  7. Screenshot the capture as it appears. Measure how much of the screen it takes.

    What a miss costs
    A tab tucked into a corner is easy to scroll straight past, and it captures a fraction of what the same offer earns at full size.
    What good looks like
    Give the offer the room the offer deserves. If it is not worth interrupting for, the problem is the offer, not the size.

  8. Do all of the above on an actual phone, not a narrow browser window.

    What a miss costs
    Most DTC traffic is mobile and most popups are designed on a desktop. A form that needs a pinch to read is a form nobody fills in.
    What good looks like
    Design the mobile version first and let the desktop one inherit. Tap targets, font size, and a keyboard that does not cover the submit button.

02 - Retention - 6 checks

What brings somebody back, and what the flows have to work with when they get there. Six checks.

  1. Open a product page. Find the reviews without scrolling to the bottom.

    What a miss costs
    Thin or invisible reviews cost conversion on the product page and starve the flows of the social proof that makes a second purchase easy.
    What good looks like
    Reviews above the fold on the product page, and a post-purchase request that actually asks. The flows can quote them once they exist.

  2. If you sell something people run out of, check whether they can subscribe to it.

    What a miss costs
    For a consumable, no subscription option means re-selling the same customer the same jar every month at full acquisition cost.
    What good looks like
    A subscribe option on the product page for anything consumable. Durables are exempt and this check treats them that way.

  3. Find something out of stock. See what the page offers you.

    What a miss costs
    An out-of-stock page with no notify-me hands a buyer who had already decided straight to a competitor.
    What good looks like
    Back-in-stock capture on every sold-out variant, wired to a flow that fires the moment it returns.

  4. Ask yourself what a second-time buyer gets that a first-time buyer does not.

    What a miss costs
    With no loyalty or rewards mechanic, every repeat purchase has to be bought again with a discount, which is the most expensive retention there is.
    What good looks like
    Something a returning customer gets for being one. It does not have to be points. It has to be real and it has to be visible before the second purchase.

  5. Scroll to the bottom of the home page. See whether anything asks for an email address.

    What a miss costs
    The footer is where a visitor who read to the bottom asks to hear more, and leaving it off wastes the most engaged traffic on the site.
    What good looks like
    The same offer as the popup, in the footer, on every page. It costs nothing and it catches the people who dismissed the popup and then kept reading.

  6. Move the cursor towards the address bar as though you are leaving. See whether anything happens.

    What a miss costs
    A leaving visitor is the cheapest subscriber a store will ever get, and most storefronts let them go in silence.
    What good looks like
    One exit-intent capture, desktop only, with a different line from the entry popup. It is the last honest moment to ask.

03 - Discounts - 3 checks

The three that quietly undo the other fourteen. A store can pass every capture check and still teach its customers to wait.

  1. Compare the welcome offer against your median product price. Not your highest, not your hero product. The median.

    What a miss costs
    A welcome offer sized round rather than sized against the catalogue is either ignored or expensive. Too small and it does nothing; too large and it becomes the price.
    What good looks like
    Size it against the median. Then check what it does to margin on the products people actually buy first.

  2. Search your brand name plus the word 'discount code' and open the first three results.

    What a miss costs
    When coupon sites publicly list codes worth more than the welcome offer, the signup incentive is beaten at checkout by a Google search, and the list gets no credit for the sale.
    What good looks like
    Single-use codes for the welcome offer, and a periodic sweep of what is publicly listed. You cannot stop the sites existing. You can stop them out-bidding you.

  3. Look at your own site the way a repeat customer does. How often is something on sale?

    What a miss costs
    A permanent sitewide sale banner teaches the customer that full price is a mistake, and no flow can out-earn that lesson.
    What good looks like
    Sales that start and stop. If the banner has been up for a month, it is not a sale, it is your pricing.
What it cannot see

None of this is inside your Klaviyo. It says nothing about your flows, your list health, your sending reputation or what you actually sent last month and to whom. That is the half a checklist cannot reach, and it is what the call is for.

Keep in touch

That is the whole thing. Nothing is held back.

We put one of these out at a time and there is no archive to join.If you want the next one, leave an address. If not, take the checklist and go.

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